Babylon 5 3-10: Severed Dreams

Episode:

54

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Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

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Air Date:

1-Apr-1996

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Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing about a Babylon 5 episode.

Severed Dreams was pretty much the final part of a stealth three-parter, and this worked out pretty well for UK viewers who got the episodes weekly with no breaks and no cliffhangers. It was less good for US fans, as they had to wait five weeks to see how things got resolved here. They couldn't have really aired it any sooner though to be fair, as the episode is so VFX heavy they struggled to get it all finished in time as it is. I'm not sure it was absolutely necessary to air the episode on April 1st though. Viewers just had to hope that the entire story arc didn't turn out to be a magnificent prank.

I can't talk really, as I had the bright idea to launch Sci-Fi Adventures on April 1st, and it's the day the site always comes back after taking February and March off. In fact I could've been clever and held off reviewing Severed Dreams until next April, using it to kick off the next block of reviews, but... no. It's already taken me long enough to get here.

Here's some trivia for you: the episode was up for the 'Best Dramatic Presentation' Hugo in 1997, an award that Babylon 5 had actually won the previous year with The Coming of Shadows. This time though it was up against Independence Day, Star Trek: First Contact, the 30th anniversary episode of Deep Space Nine where they go back and hang out with Captain Kirk, and... uh, Mars Attacks! Spoiler: Mars Attacks! didn't win.

In fact it was Babylon 5 that went and won the Hugo for a second time! Because that's what happens when you make Severed Dreams.

SPOILER WARNING!

The DVD comes with a commentary track, but I'd recommend staying clear if you haven't seen the whole series yet as they tend to spoil things. In fact stay clear of all the special features. My review, on the other hand, won't spoil a thing! Well, except for the whole of Severed Dreams and the episodes leading up to it.

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The episode begins with Londo in a queue in the customs area. His exposition reveals that the staff are a bit overwhelmed due to all the people trying to get home or escape to the relative safety of Babylon 5... or at least that's what they claim. Instead Londo's blaming it on the Narns they've put on the security force.

Of course a Narn working in security overhears him and manages to find a way to make him wait a few hours longer, but he's very polite about it.

I've noticed that Londo's looking pretty sleek these days now that he's gotten himself together and his star is in ascendance; they've sorted his hair out so it's not a scruffy mess. This is all the Londo we're getting this story though, he's done now.

Meanwhile, in space, General Hague's ship is still on the run from Clark's forces.

We saw news footage of the EAS Alexander escaping into a jump point on ISN last episode, but now we're getting a close up look at it in action as it trades energy blasts with the EAS Clarkstown.

The Clarkstown is an older Hyperion-class cruiser, but the Alexander can't outrun them in normal space and if they jump they'll be abandoning all their Starfuries. I'm a bit confused about that, as I'm sure we've seen that fighters can duck into another ship's jump point just fine if they're quick about it, but I feel like Earthforce officers probably know more about this than I do so I'll take their word for it.

The bridge of the Alexander looks kind of familiar to me, possibly because they've done the same thing they did in A Distant Star for the Cortez, and redressed their C&C set.

This is General Hague's ship but it's not General Hague in command, it's some other guy played by Bruce McGill from Timecop! Producer jms apparently wanted Everett McGill from Twin Peaks and they cast the wrong person by mistake, but it's a happy accident as he turned out to be good in the role.

They did well casting his second in command as well, as that's Phil Morris. The guy's been doing sci-fi so long that you can find him credited as 'Boy - Army Helmet' in Miri, one of the first episodes of the original Star Trek. He's also the son of Mission: Impossible actor Greg Morris and went on to play his character's son in the 1988 revival, which isn't really relevant to B5 but I thought it was interesting.

Robert Foxworth was originally supposed to return as General Hague, but he was accidentally double-booked by his agent and apparently decided he'd rather be making Star Trek money. He took a job on Deep Space Nine instead, in which he played an entirely different high ranking officer involved in some entirely different political drama that was also remarkably similar.

This makes him one of the few actors to have worn both a Starfleet and an Earthforce uniform. Weird how things seem a lot grainier when he's wearing the Earthforce one.

Anyway, the Alexander's in a rubbish situation right now and all their choices are bad ones, so they decide they have to fight. They fire their aft batteries at the Clarkstown and utterly obliterate the pursuing vessel in one hit. Hey, that was President Clark's favourite ship! Captain Bruce McGill's not over the moon about blowing it up either, because he'd met the ship's captain. This isn't like other conflicts they've fought in; this time they know everyone they kill. Great explosion though.

They set a course... for Babylon 5.

ACT ONE

So Sheridan gets to give the good news to his command staff: Earthforce's most wanted fugitive spaceship is coming here to make repairs. The B5 crew are already on EarthGov's shit list after arresting all the Nightwatch members last episode, but if they get caught assisting a ship accused of treason their situation will go from screwed to extra screwed.

They're still going to help them, but Sheridan's going to have Garibaldi cut off all communication back home the moment the ship arrives. They'll keep the ISN channel open though, as it's their only source of information about what's going on back home. It's a shame really they don't have a force of covert agents that they can send out to perform recon and gather intel.

Anyway, Franklin's not at the meeting as he's been called down to the docking bays to help a wounded Ranger. They need to get him to Medlab without the bounty hunters finding him, but they don't know which of the Narns working security they can trust. Fortunately G'Kar steps out from behind a box to help out! He's even going to carry him the whole way by himself, because he's determined to be helpful.

G'Kar's got one more appearance in a different docking bay a little later on, but then that's it for him as well. He's done for the episode just like Londo.

And today's ISN reporter is...

It's Jane! She's had the most appearances of all the ISN anchors, showing up two or three times a season so far. She was in the last episode in fact, telling people about the Alexander escaping Clark's forces. Helped start a riot and everything.

Right now she's telling viewers that Mars has refused the President's order to implement martial law, so that's good news at least. Though Sheridan and Ivanova don't get a chance to smile about it as they've got to deal with the Alexander's arrival.

This means letting their C&C crew know that they're going to be giving humanitarian aid to a rogue ship in defiance of their own government, which is always an awkward conversation to have. They give people a chance to leave the command deck if they have a problem with this... and Corwin stays at his post!

Down in Medlab, the wounded (and tearful) Ranger reveals that many of the Non-Aligned Worlds have turned to the Shadows for protection against the Centauri. But now that they've got the Shadows on their side, they're feeling like they could take on their neighbours, maybe even conquer a few planets for themselves. It's not hard to imagine what's going on over there, we've seen the type of people that Morden likes to deal with; he's been getting the President Clarks, the Londo Mollaris and the Lord Refas into power and then letting them go nuts.

It's nice of the Ranger to go around to all these distant planets to make absolutely sure it's many worlds and not just some worlds who've made an alliance with the Shadows, but he could've checked in between trips, maybe given Delenn some clue that any of this was happening. Our heroes seem to have a real problem with communication and collecting intelligence.

Actually it turns out that he did tell the Grey Council already. But they felt that the problems of others are not their concern. They didn't even use the 'if we take action the Shadows may move before we're ready to fight them' excuse, possibly because it would obviously be bullshit. They straight up just don't give a damn.

Delenn doesn't seem 100% happy to hear this news.

Meanwhile, Major Ryan from the Alexander comes over and informs them that General Hague has been double booked killed in their last firefight. Don't piss off a writer I guess. Ryan's uniform looks fancier than Sheridan's, but it seems that in Earthforce a captain outranks a major, so Foxworth's choice to do DS9 has made Sheridan the new leader of the renegade forces!

By the way, you may be able to tell from the screencap that the meeting room scenes in this episode are a bit less cinematic than the ones from Messages from Earth. The direction's not bad, but it's generally more like what you'd expect from mid-90s television.

It's been a week since things went to crap on Earth and we learn here that shock troops are out in force across the planet. But people actually aren't too bothered about it at the moment. So far the main effect that martial law has had on their lives is that it's lowered crime.

But Mars has refused martial law and they might be able to get enough support to push back. As long as they don't get bombed by advanced Starfuries.

Oh no!

These are a new type of Starfury, known as the Thunderbolt. Unlike the Starfuries we've seen so far, these ones are designed to operate in both space and atmosphere, making them more of a conventional X-Wing style starfighter.

Also we hear over the radio that this is Omega wing, and that's a concern. Omega-class destroyers, they're good, we like them. Well, except for the bad ones. Omega call signs on the other hand, that tends to mean Psi Corps. I guess they didn't get around to painting the fighters black yet.

They do wear black helmet visors though, which is an interesting choice. We've always been able to see a pilot's face up to this point, but this guy is the faceless instrument of Clark's will.

The thing about Mars is that the cities are all protected by domes, so by cracking those domes they're letting the nice breathable atmosphere out. We hear on the radio that they've got women and children down there (which is a bit of a strange line in this post-sexism future), so they're definitely hitting targets with civilians around. It's not good.

ACT TWO

Act two begins with Delenn departing to visit the Grey Council, as another Omega-class ship arrives. It's the Churchill, allied to General Hague's rebellion. When ISN reported that only one ship escaped last episode, that wasn't quite accurate.

By the way, this screencap might look slightly less fuzzy than usual. That's because I grabbed it from one of the videos in the special features instead. The CGI sequences were only ever rendered at 90s TV resolution, but that doesn't mean they can't look better than they do on the DVDs.

In fact this came from season two's special features. See, I wasn't lying when I said stay away from the special features until you've seen the whole 5 year run.

Down in the Zocalo, everyone's gathered around the unnecessary stacks of TVs to hear the latest from ISN. They've probably all got 23rd century smart phones (that we'll never ever see), but when ISN's the only signal getting through, it's the only place to get the news.

Why are these TVs even here though? I'm sure this can't be a TV shop.

Anyway, it turns out that Clark's going to keep on bombing Mars until they get with the program, which is a problem for all the people there who need oxygen. Though it's nice to see that ISN still gets to broadcast like this. I know I've said this before, but it's still true: Earth's pretty far gone, but it's not that far gone.

Suddenly the action cuts to the ISN studio as another reporter sits down to hijack Jane's broadcast. We're actually on Earth for once!

Rick is here to tell people that the colonies at Orion 7 and Proxima 3 have just broken away from the Earth Alliance in protest at the bombings! This is clearly not news that Clark wants people to know about and Jane would appreciate it if Rick would shut up, but what she doesn't know is that they're already in the shit. Armed troops are moving in on the building right now, so really they've got nothing to lose by telling people what's actually going on. Unfortunately the ceiling starts coming down before they get a chance.

Honestly, three seasons ago I would not have called that the ISN news reporter would get to be in an action scene, and she seems genuinely shocked by it too. I don't think the actress was expecting the bits of ceiling to land so close.

Back in Sheridan's meeting room, Captain Hiroshi from the Churchill has just shown up to join Ryan and the others, and like Ryan she isn't exactly what jms originally pictured her to be. But a female Asian actress was the best choice, so that's what they went with.

She's got some awesome news for them: Clark's sending his elite troops to seize any colony or outpost that might oppose him and a whole fleet has been sent after the Alexander! The news gets better: the ships were already on their way to take Babylon 5 and arrest the command staff, so there's no chance Major Ryan will be able to lure them away, and we know these people have no compunction against cracking open hulls and letting people suffocate if they put up a resistance.

The other alien races won't be coming to save them, they're all busy with their own wars. Things are looking kind of bad!

The director used a Jaws-style dolly/zoom move here to show Sheridan's world collapse under the weight of this dilemma he's been dropped into, and it was a nice idea, but I don't think they pulled it off. I mean it's technically fine, but it doesn't quite work for me in the context of the scene. I think it might be because they rush it and don't cut away from him for a while afterwards, so it feels very mechanical.

Seems that the B5 crew have two options, surrender now and get court-martialled, or fire on their own ships and risk the lives of everyone on the station. If they pick option #2 and fail they'll either be killed in the attack or executed for treason afterwards. But they're supposed to be leading an Army of Light against an ancient evil threatening all their races so I don't see option #1 really being on the table. Nobody in the room wanted this battle, they know how horrible it's going to be, but everyone votes to fight.

Cut to a whole lot of ships in hyperspace coming their way. Two Omega-class destroyers, two Hyperion-class heavy cruisers, and a swarm of Starfuries.

ACT THREE

Meanwhile it's time for Delenn's annual visit to the Grey Council's secret spaceship! It looks just like I remember it, except the corridors have been repainted the same colour as the ones on the White Star. Funny that.

Delenn's first visit was back in season 1's Babylon Squared. She gave a bit of a speech and then decided to decline the position of leader of the Minbari, preferring to just remain part of the council. In season 2's All Alone in the Night she came back for a second visit and found that she'd been kicked out! Worse, Neroon had taken her spot, giving the Warrior Caste a majority. If the pattern continues, this visit she's going to find that she's lost her role as ambassador and the job's been given to Morden instead.

But last time she came by she'd just been through a traumatic transformation and was feeling a whole lot less sure of herself. Since then she's passed Jack the Ripper's test, taken on two Shadow vessels and won, and seen hundreds die because of the arrogance of others. This time she's made of steel.

She storms into the council chamber uninvited and unpermitted, and tells them that she'd been warning them this crap was going to happen for three years now. The Shadows are on the move, Narn has fallen, the humans are fighting each other, and they're just sitting on their ass. What's the point of a prophecy if no one's going to listen to it!

Everyone stands silent in their shame, and totally not because they're extras. Even Neroon's keeping his mouth shut.

But Delenn's not done yet.

She's so pissed off that she goes and snaps the staff with the triluminary on the end! The outtakes show that it took a couple of tries though, as the pre-broken prop wouldn't cooperate.

Delenn has absolutely no authority here, but she declares the council to be broken and they're so cowed by her righteous indignation that they just have to accept it. Five councillors follow her out, though one of the remaining four tries to convince their buddy to stay leaving by grabbing their arm.

Three of the councillors are from the Worker Caste, two of them are from the Religious Caste and four are from the Warrior Caste, so it seems fairly clear who stayed and who left.

And that's the Grey Council subplot over with! Earth's government has been falling into fascism over the course of months but Delenn managed to break the Minbari government in just three minutes. Why doesn't Sheridan just go charging into Earthdome and shove Clark out of his chair or something?

With hours left until the fleet arrives, Sheridan manages to get a call through to Rance Howard, who turns out to be his dad David Sheridan! Lots of dads in this series, not many mothers. Though we already saw his dad back in Knives and he was played by a different actor.

This time the actor's allowed to talk though, which actually makes a lot of difference! I can really believe this is father and son. And David believes that John is going to make the right choice, as he taught him to never start a fight but always finish it. He tells him not to worry about him or his mother, because they'll be fine. Not entirely sure I'm buying that, but it's enough to encourage Sheridan to do what he needs to do.

I guess the pilots and security officers have all been having long emotional conversations with people as well, as the episode then cuts to them running to grab their gear like they didn't have six hours advance warning.

Oh damn, it's Earharts! I really thought we were done with this set now.

Sheridan decides to use Draal's holographic projection system on Epsilon III to broadcast a message to everyone on the station, I guess because he wants to scare and confuse them. Or maybe it's because they all ignored him when he was reading his martial law order on the monitors and one of them even put a chair through a screen!

He tells them that Orion 7 and Proxima 3 have seceded from the Earth Alliance, and they're going to do the same. Babylon 5 will remain an independent state until President Clark is removed from office! In Babylon Squared we saw Old Jeffrey Sinclair steal Babylon 4 to use as a base of operations in a war. Now Sheridan's done the same thing!

Ivanova brings up that they could ask Draal to use the Great Machine to help with the defence as well, but Sheridan wants to keep him out of it. In fact he wants to keep him a secret, despite the fact that Earth clearly knows about him after the events of A Voice in the Wilderness. Anyway jms has hung a lantern on that now, so he's free to ignore Draal for the rest of the story.

For the second time this episode, Sheridan tells the C&C staff that if they want to leave, now's the time, and one person actually does hand their clipboard over and walk out. But it's still not Corwin! Turns out they probably could've brought him into their conspiracy earlier. Though it doesn't matter much anymore as they're all part of this thing now... well, everyone that's still here. Poor Garibaldi, he lost probably half his people to the Nightwatch and Ivanova's lost like one. Probably because her people know what happens to officers when they choose to defy her.

But Ivanova doesn't want to be stuck in C&C, she wants to be out there in a Starfury shooting officers that have chosen to defy her! The opening titles have had Starfuries fighting Starfuries outside the station for 10 episodes now and now that it's finally happening she wants to be the one flying the Starfury! Sheridan does take a little convincing at first, but ultimately accepts that if they're asking their pilots to kill other Earthforce pilots, one of them needs to be out there with them.

Clark's fleet arrives and Sheridan gets on the phone, making it very clear that he believes they are following illegal orders, that B5 doesn't want a fight, and that they will defend themselves if necessary. The fleet ignores him.

This is a bit like Sheridan's very first episode, with the Minbari ship attacking the station and all of their fighters hanging around outside waiting to see if the other side opens fire. Again Sheridan orders them to hold fire unless they're fired upon. Though there's also a breaching pod on the way so I don't know what the rules are about that.

ACT FOUR

There you go, Starfuries shooting Starfuries at last! Though they've got Clark's forces flying Thunderbolts so we can tell them apart. Both sides have two identical Omega-class cruisers though, so keeping track of them is a lot harder. For us and the VFX team.

The station and capital ships are firing interceptors here, basically shooting the enemy's bullets out of the sky, which is fairly unique to Babylon 5 I reckon. In Battlestar Galactica they put up a wall of flak, Star Trek, Star Wars and Stargate all have shields, and in The Expanse they just pump the air out of the ship so that there's no decompression or combustion and hope there's nothing important in the way of the incoming fire. Personally I'd rather have the shields.

Man that chair console was a bad idea. It's so heavy that the captain's chair's leaning to one side and it wobbles whenever he presses buttons. Probably doesn't help that the arm rests are right up in Captain Ryan's armpits.

The Alexander likely isn't in great condition right now, seeing as they came to the station for repairs, but Ryan decides that the best place for the ship to be is right down the enemy's throats so they fire up the engines.

Back on B5, Corwin detects a breaching pod coming in, but Garibaldi's on it.

So, are they just going to run all the way to Brown Sector then?

It's nice to see that someone's been busy tearing all the propaganda posters by the way. Not tearing them down, just tearing them.

They've got to intercept the invading troops before they reach open ground or else they could get anywhere in the station. Unfortunately the human and Narns that make up Garibaldi's security force haven't exactly had time to train together, and when Garibaldi finds a nice room full of boxes they could use for cover, the Narns just keep going.

Clark's elite troops blow open a wall and start gunning down Narn after Narn as they charge into them. There's no sound effects at this point, only music, and the soundtrack's definitely of the opinion that this is a tragic waste of life.

These guys have really taken G'Kar's speeches about sacrifice to heart, even if their bravery does make them look kind of stupid. Hide behind the boxes you idiots, PPGs are specially designed not to penetrate metal! Also the more times I watch the scene, the more I notice their huge baggy pants. And why are the enemy troops coming in through a wall and not the floor?

Over in Sheridan's side of the battle, three enemy 'Furies have locked onto C&C and they're going to see if they can survive the station's turrets long enough to punch through the blast shield.

Nope, but the impact of their exploding wreckage slamming into the hull blew up a stuntwoman. I thought that looked pretty impressive.

It also shows that putting the command centre somewhere exposed isn't tactically ideal. Though Battlestar Galactica's pretty much the only thing I can think of that doesn't do this, so I'll let them off.

Fortunately they had someone on hand with a fire extinguisher in case the set caught fire.

Sheridan's had enough at this point and orders them to target the EAS Roanoke. One thing I learned from the fight against the Centauri warship in The Fall of Night is that Sheridan will do what he can to defend his station and discourage people from shooting at it, but once it starts taking damage those defensive guns are getting turned around to cause someone some serious hurt.

The Churchill's pretty much a lost cause at this point as it's a burning wreck of a ship, so Captain Hiroshi decides it's time for ramming speed, and slams the thing into the side of the... uh...

Well the dialogue says it's Agrippa, but the side of the ship says it's the Roanoke. I'm just going to assume they swapped the nameplates around in a deliberate attempt to confuse the enemy. And it works! Ivanova's so distracted by the whole thing she doesn't notice that her Starfury is flying straight into another ship. To be fair, who wouldn't be distracted by someone driving one mile-long spaceship right into another one?

Foundation Imaging filmed their own explosion elements to composite into these scenes because it was apparently cheaper than getting stock footage. Well it was supposed to be anyway. They had a Plexiglas screen set up above a camera in the car park and started blowing stuff up over it. But one particularly pretty impressive explosion managed to melt through the screen and wreck their camera lens.

She tries to regain control after the collision, but Sheridan eventually talks her into ejecting before her fighter slams into the side of the Agrippa. Uh, I mean the Roanoke?

The Alexander has gotten right up close to the... surviving Omega-class destroyer at this point and cuts a nice line down the side of it.

Sheridan yells at them to surrender but they stubbornly blow up instead.

I like the way the ship's clearly in the process of exploding, but the hull is hanging around as a wreck instead of disappearing into space dust like you'd typically get in space battles up to this point.

That's the last of Clark's Omega-class ships destroyed, and the two Hyperion-class ships that came in with them have disappeared off-screen, so that's pretty much it for the space part of the battle. Now Garibaldi and the Narns just have to finish off the troops in Brown Sector and it's over.

But Corwin decides to tempt fate by saying "It's a good thing it stopped when it did, we couldn't take much more." Suddenly another three ships comes out of hyperspace, two of them Omega-class destroyers. Seems to me that what the enemy commander should've done, was had the first fleet wait in hyperspace another ten minutes for the others to arrive. Then they could've all attacked at once instead of throwing away half their ships for no good reason.

It doesn't really matter at this point though, as Babylon 5's in no condition to keep fighting. Clark's fleet has won. So... now's the time to call Draal, right?

Then another four jump points open above the station. Usually fleets all come in through the same jump point so I guess these guys are just showing off.

But it's Minbari War Cruisers that come flying out of them, followed by the White Star! Commanded by Delenn! I guess the secret's out about who the White Star belongs to now.

This is the second time now that's Delenn's gotten into a row with the Grey Council, learned that Sheridan was in danger on her way back, then came flying in to save the day.

"This is Ambassador Delenn of the Minbari. Babylon 5 is under our protection. Withdraw or be destroyed."

"Negative. We have authority here. Do not force us to engage your ship."

"Why not? Only one human captain has ever survived battle with a Minbari fleet. He is behind me, you are in front of me. If you value your lives, be somewhere else."

Aww, you can tell Delenn loves him!

Funny thing is, Babylon 5 probably wouldn't have been able to hold out until Delenn's arrival if it hadn't gotten that upgraded defence grid in GROPOS. Clark's EarthGov didn't care about Babylon 5 as a diplomatic station, they wanted a military outpost, and that's what it is now. As Jeffrey Sinclair once said: never hand someone a gun unless you're sure where they'll point it.

Clark's forces retreat and it's finally over for real this time. The station's theirs.

Speaking of GROPOS, they're re-enacting the ending to the episode down in Brown Sector right now, as the floor is covered in the dead or dying. Lots of Narns that gave their lives to protect the station, lots of humans on both sides. Funny how we don't get to see the faces of any of the enemy commanders in this episode, only the cannon fodder.

Space battles are all about exploding metal, you don't get to see the lives lost inside the ships (at least not in the way they were shot in the 90s), but scenes like this get the point across. Assuming there's about 500 people crewing each ship and only three ships were destroyed, that's still 1,500 people dead. Then you've got all the dead Starfury pilots, and all the soldiers. It's not the most cheerful of endings.

Jerry Doyle definitely doesn't look too happy. That's because he tripped and broke his right arm for real, and instead of going to a hospital he decided to stick around to get the scene finished. Then he tripped and broke his right arm again.

He was always supposed to be injured in the fight, that's why this scene of Zack helping him sit down is here, but it was supposed to be his leg not his arm. This may be Doyle's all-time best performance though, as he is absolutely convincing as someone who's in a lot of pain.

The whole boarding sequence is similar to the flash-forward in Babylon Squared, where Garibaldi stayed behind in a heroic last stand so that Sinclair could escape. Except this time Sinclair isn't here, it's not a last stand, and they don't rig the fusion reactors to blow the station up. So if that was a real flash of the future those events are still yet to come.

ACT FIVE

Act five begins back in the meeting room, with Sheridan and Ryan chatting about the aftermath. Babylon 5 lost 30% of their Starfuries, but the destruction of the Churchill has left a lot of fighters and pilots without a home, so that fixes that. It also means that Babylon 5 gets some of those flashy new Thunderbolt fighters.

Ryan's going to leave in the Alexander to split Clark's attention and hopefully find more ships to join up with their resistance, so he'll be carrying on with the work that General Hague would've been doing if he wasn't on Deep Space Nine. And Sheridan's going to leave his uniform jacket behind, because Earthforce is kind of evil right now.

Well they're finally shipping out all the bloody Nightwatch members, so now I don't have to worry about accidentally calling them Nightwish by mistake anymore. Though they can only catch the ones with the armbands on so they've almost certainly got some sabotage to look forward to.

But Delenn's back on board and that's what Sheridan cares about right now. He tells her that seeing her face on that screen was probably the single finest moment of his life, and she tells him that she had to protect the only home they have left. She shakes his hand and he kisses hers. Aww.

Garibaldi's limping with a crutch here instead of having his arm in a cast, as the scene was filmed before his real life injury, but he has his hand in his pocket the whole time so it kind of works.

Ivanova comes over and does the 'Captain, there's something here you need to see' thing that usually annoys me, but in this case...

... it's a Zocalo full of people waiting to give him a TV show clap. It seems that his 'stand up to fascism' policies have public support! Though he's the king now, the head of state, there's no one for him to take orders from anymore, so he really is responsible for all of their lives from this point on.

I've seen The Expanse, I've played Alien: Isolation, I know what happens when the society on a space colony collapses. He's got to make sure business and food keeps coming in despite the complete absence of funding or else they won't be clapping like this for him much in the future.

Well that's an ominous shot to end the episode on. The music agrees.

Also something was bothering me about it, so I had to go back and check... turns out it's the exact same poster that was on the wall when Garibaldi was leading his troops to Brown Sector. Well I mean it's the same mark across it, though for all I know they printed off a few of them with the tear as part of the image.


CONCLUSION

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The Babylon Project was a dream given form. It's goal, to prevent another war by creating a place where humans and aliens could work out their differences peacefully. Now that dream's been severed.

Instead of peace, they've ended up with most of the known races at war with each other. Clark and the Psi Corps have assassinated President Santiago and taken control of Earth, Lord Refa and Emperor Cartagia have seized power on Centauri Prime, Narn has been bombed into rubble, and now the Minbari Grey Council has been broken! The way things are, I wouldn't be surprised if Green has pulled a coup against Purple on the Drazi homeworld as well. Who does that even leave, the Vorlons? Not only that, but the station itself has been severed from the Earth Alliance. Everything's fallen apart!

Though in some ways their secession from Earth is actually a relief. The Babylon 5 crew have tried to be more proactive this season, but they've had to do it in secret, always hiding their activities from Nightwatch and even their own people. Clark's government has been creating an atmosphere of fear and paranoia, where everyone is under investigation and everything is under surveillance, and it's been taking all the fun out of running a five mile long space station and fighting back against an ancient evil. What's the point of having a secret prototype warship at your disposal if you can't leave the station?

Now the Nightwatch has gone, all the senators bothering them on the StellarCom are gone, the frequent VIPs from Earth are gone, even General Hague is gone. They are truly on their own, leaders of their own colony. Free to relax in their own home. At least while they've got the Minbari outside to scare off the warships, the Narns inside to keep the peace, and the money to keep the lights on. Sure they're all traitors who'll be arrested if they ever go back to Earth, but B5's not the worst tin can in space to be stuck in. It's just a shame that Earth had to fall to fascism and hundreds had to die for them to get here.

Severed Dreams is the third part of a secret three-parter, but it's paying off seasons' worth of build-up and it does not disappoint. The sneaking is over, Clark comes after our heroes head on, and we get the biggest space battle in the series so far. About 15% of the episode is effects shots... which has the side effect of making it one of the worst looking episodes on the widescreen release as all those shots have been cropped! Still, it's a great battle, with giant starships going up against each other while Starfuries dogfight around them. When I wrote about Signs and Portents I mentioned it had possibly the biggest space battle since Return of the Jedi, and this is even better.

But Severed Dreams came a couple of years later and Deep Space Nine had really stepped up its game by this point. In fact the series had aired its own epic mid-series 'station under siege' story a few months earlier, itself a contender for the greatest episode of its entire run. So which is better, Severed Dreams or Way of the Warrior? Well, judging it purely on the visual effects in the space battle, Way of the Warrior's fight is more photorealistic thanks to its use of practical models, but it has less than half the screen time and suffers from fake looking superimposed explosions and dull camera work. Plus it's pretty much just 'shot of weapons firing, shot of something blowing up' over and over. Severed Dreams on the other hand is much more dynamic and elaborate, with one of the heroes sitting in a fighter cockpit and ships coming apart during the fight, but it looks like it was rendered on home PCs in the mid-90s. Though let's face it, the effects in both episodes are utterly outclassed by even The Orville these days, and what matters is how it all comes together as a story.

So which is the better episode overall then? Man, I don't care, I love them both! Way of the Warrior and Severed Dreams are probably my favourite episodes of their respective series and why choose between them when I can enjoy them both? In fact this entire three-parter is a highlight of 90's science fiction and it's a bloody shame you can't just start watching the show here as you sure have to wade through some crap to get here.

I mean, like, parts of seasons 1 and 2, I'm not dissing season 3!

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COMING SOON

Babylon 5 will return with Ceremonies of Light and Dark, the halfway point of the entire series! Unless you count all the movies, The Lost Tales, Crusade... man I'm going to be stuck doing this forever.

But next week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'll be taking a break from Babylon 5 to write about some Star Wars instead. The Force Awakens, to be specific. Please leave a comment!